Thursday, May 24, 2007

PC world has compiled a list of top 50 gadgets in the last 50 years. I really had fun going through the list and looking at few things I haven't even heard about. Take a look at it and see for yourself.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

I have been using Airtel 256 Kbps Unlimited plan for the last 6 months, the speed was okie and I should say I was happy with the service. Last week I decided to make a move to 2 MBPS connection plan (limited to 4 GB download). The change was done pretty soon but unfortunately I haven't noticed significant change in my download speed.

The customer personnel keeps asking me to check the speed in their website which keeps reporting download speeds around 1.5 MBPS - 1.7 MBPS. But if I try a different site like InternetFrog it keeps reporting a download speed of 400 - 500 kbps. They have sent a technician ?? to my house who looked and accepted that there was something wrong but went back and reported that everything was right???

I am not certainly not happy with the way Airtel is working to get this resolved.. but someday I hope to see Youtube videos without any pause :)

Update : It's been a month and my issue is still not resolved and I am frustrated after talking to Airtel Customer service for hours. So atlast I have decided to go back to my 256K unlimited plan. I am seriously looking elsewhere to change my ISP.

As part of their experimentation effort Google has developed search page that can be navigated easily using keyboard shortcuts. I was expecting this from google for some time now since all the google applications like google reader, calendar and gmail have been heavily using keyboard shortcuts and they have been hugely popular among users.

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

I managed to be a part of the hype going around the web atlast.. I got an invite to try Joost thru the weblog of Brajeshwar. I have been waiting for sometime to try this service. I should say I am very satisfied with the quality of videos that has been streamed using thier software.

I am sure you saw folks around the net talking about how slow thier service is and how much time it takes to download thier video. I think folks at joost have not done a good job in giving out so many invites at the same time and not considering the scalability of thier system. But I think they will scale up thier servers soon and we should be able to see the channels without waiting for a long time.

I have quite a lot of Joost invites to give away, so Please leave a comment with your email address in non-spam format(ie. hello at yahoo dot com) and i can send it across to you so you can enjoy the fun.

I recently downloaded and installed OneNote 2007 from the MSDN subscriber downloads. To activate the product, I requested the product keys from the MSDN subscriber website but I was not able to activate the product using the product key. This is the first time I am having weird experience with a software that has been downloaded from the MSDN subscriber website.

I tried to call the MSDN support line, thier solution was to install the software from the MSDN CD that has been sent to the subscribers rather than downloading it from the MSDN subscribers online. It seems microsoft has uploaded an incorrect .iso image of OneNote 2007 and they are in the process of fixing it. Since we are using a volume user license and not everyone gets a copy of MSDN cd's I need to run around trying to hunt down the person having the OneNote 2007 Cd !!

If any one knows a solution for this problem, please leave a note :)

Update : This is a known Microsoft issue and you can activate your OneNote 2007 software by using the key you request for "Office 2007 Applications". Good for me now I don't have to run around to hunt the person having that CD ;)

Monday, May 07, 2007

I wanted to read about Windows Workflow foundation since I have to prototype an upcoming project using it. Initially, I picked up this book "Foundations of WF: an Introduction to Windows Workflow Foundation (Expert's Voice in .Net)". I was shocked to see such a poorly written book from aPress. I could easily say it was one of the worst books I have read in terms of quality and presentation. To add to the misery the author keeps jumping between VB and copying the code to C#.. I have decided to drop the book and want to warn others who might want to pick a copy of this book..

I am going to pickup "Programming Windows Workflow Foundation Techniques" based on the reviews from Amazon it should certainly be a better book than "apress" book. Will keep you posted on my experience :)

About Me

Person who loves to code in C# and neat SQL hacks in SQL Server. Mostly worked in Microsoft related technologies. Love travelling when I do have some time. Did my studies mostly in Coimbatore. Worked in Coimbatore, Mumbai, London, New York, Washington DC and now back in Chennai.